


oh, we're not promised tomorrow

by whatsupdanger



Category: Henry Danger (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Curses, F/M, Magic, Mild Blood, Sort Of, Swearing, no betas we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 21:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21125585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsupdanger/pseuds/whatsupdanger
Summary: They’d been twelve and sitting on the castle's rooftop at twilight, and he'd told her the story like he'd recited it by heart. His father had unknowingly killed a witch's familiar on a hunting trip. In retaliation, she'd placed a curse on him—his firstborn child would die before his twenty-first birthday. Henry’s parents had searched tirelessly for a cure, but the closest they could find was this: a crystal from Guardian Lake, which would protect him from harm until its magic ran out.That, it turns out, happens sooner than they expected.





	oh, we're not promised tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> i honestly don't? know where this came from? i had this idea on friday and i was mulling it over throughout the whole weekend and trying to find the time and inspiration to write this and last night it just...hit me all at once, as cliche as that sounds. i wrote for four hours straight without a single break and this was the product. i hope you enjoy! 
> 
> oh, and the title is from the song "like i'm gonna lose you"

She should've seen this coming.

To be honest, Charlotte's never really been good at making predictions; that was always her mother's forte. She's tried to make sense of the wisping smoke in crystal balls and the tea leaves at the bottom of her cup more times than she can count, but it's only ever left her confused and frustrated.

Other types of magic actually make _sense. _There's a comforting sort of precision in having to memorize the pronunciation of a spell _perfectly_ in order to get it to work, or having to carefully measure every ingredient in a potion to keep it from ending in total disaster (that's happened to Charlotte more than a few times, but she's always said that failure is the best learning tool anyway). But fortune-telling? Cards, astrology, dream-speak? She's never really understood it.

Still, though. There were other signs that pointed in this direction, ones that were far less mystical, far more real. She just didn't see them.

It's a collection of small things, really, clustered together in the past couple of weeks. They're moments that are easy to brush off at the time, especially with Henry's insistence that it's nothing_, _he's okay, he's _always _fine.

He comes back from knight training once with blood trailing from his nose, even though no one's laid a hand on him. He stumbles in the hallway and sways like he's going to pass out, and then brushes her off by saying he's just tired. He has dizzy spells, and she tells herself to believe him when he says that there's just _"something going around",_ even though she hasn't seen it herself, even though none of the health potions she slips into his morning goblets seem to be working. He's _fine, _she convinces herself. They're isolated incidents. It's nothing.

And it's easy to pretend that's the truth, up until the moment his legs give out from underneath him.

"_Henry!_" Charlotte cries out, and her knees hit the stone floor just moments after his do. She puts her hand on his shoulder, steadying him, while the other comes up to cup his cheek and he's _cold, _cold like the crisp autumn air outside and the hard grey stone beneath them.

"I'm fine," he sort of says, sort of wheezes—his breath comes stumbling out in a tight, choked gasp, and then he's coughing and there's a splatter of scarlet in front of them.

Something in her chest clenches. "Bullshit," she hisses, and he coughs more in response and the pieces start to come into place and align like the planets and she _hates _it, wishes she could chalk this all up to something, _anything _else, but there's something thrumming in the back of her mind that knows she can't ignore it anymore.

"Show me your necklace." Her voice is soft but tight, more so than she intends it to be, and maybe that's why he doesn't argue, just fumbles with the leather cord around his neck and brings the pendant out from where it's tucked under his shirt.

She remembers the first day he'd shown it to her. They'd been twelve and sitting on the castle's rooftop at twilight, and he'd told her the story like he'd recited it by heart. His father had unknowingly killed a witch's familiar on a hunting trip. In retaliation, she'd placed a curse on him—his firstborn child would die before his twenty-first birthday. Henry's parents had searched tirelessly for a cure, but the closest they could find was this: a crystal from Guardian Lake, which would protect him from harm until its magic ran out.

The white stone comes to rest next to his heart. A sharp inhale passes through Charlotte's lips, and she reaches out to brush her fingers against it while her heart plummets. The gem's soft glow has faded into nothing, and now it sits dull on the end of the necklace.

"The protection charm was supposed to last until you were eighteen," she says, quiet. "We were supposed to have more time."

Henry's laugh is mirthless, somewhere in between bitter and exhausted. "Yeah, I guess we're fresh out. Unless you've got a time spell hidden somewhere?"

There are three things that sorcerers are never supposed to tamper with: love, death, and time. She knows he's not asking, but right now, Charlotte thinks she'd break every rule if it meant saving him.

"Can you walk?" she says, urgent, and he lets her pull him to his feet and sort of staggers, but doesn't fall. She takes his hand and tugs him behind her, trying not to move too fast for him while her entire body tells her to _go._

It's slow, _too slow, _but they make it down the hallway and reach her study and she helps Henry sit down in her chair as she starts tugging books off the shelves and rifling through the pages. With a wave of her hand, they float in the air around her, circling her as she scrambles through them one by one. She's been trying to decipher the solution to this _stupid _curse ever since the day he told her about it, so there's sections in her books that are marked off, places with notes scrawled in the margins. There's the haphazard beginnings of something that could've panned out, if only she'd had more time. She was supposed to have more _time._

The tension is hot and stinging beneath her skin. She tosses novels behind her to fall to the floor, pages splayed open and bent against the ground and maybe in any other moment she'd care about the state of them but right now it doesn't _matter. _All she cares about is the fact that Henry's breathing is becoming more labored by the second, and she should've seen this coming and now there's no time to _fix this—_

"Char," he says softly behind her, and her hands quiver hard enough that all the floating books drop in a ring at her feet. "It's okay."

She bites the inside of her cheek and whirls around before she can stop herself. "Don't say that!" she snaps. "There's _nothing _about this that's okay! You're not—I'm not going to let you die like this, Henry Hart, I'm _not—"_

"Look, it's over. There's nothing _left._" He sounds defeated. His gaze darts from the shelves to the ceiling, anywhere but to hers, and she wishes that he'd yell, or cry or scream or _something, _but instead he's just _sitting there _with his brown eyes huge and soft and resigned.

Her shoulders are tight, her jaw clenched so hard it hurts. "How can you be so calm about this?" she demands.

"Because I have to be!" he says sharply, and stands up unsteadily with his hands tugging through his hair, fingers mussing it up even further and tightening around the dusty gold locks. "Because I'm fucking _terrified _but I can't—I have to—I've had this curse on me for _twelve years_, Char, and I've always known this was coming and I told myself that I wasn't gonna fall apart when it did, I can't _do that—"_

"There's still time," she presses, the desperation plain in her voice. "I can find something, we can still find a way—"

He looks at her with the tear tracks on his face glittering in the low light of the candles, and he reaches out a hand to take hers. "There's no way out of this," he says, and her chest tightens. "You know that."

"_No." _She tugs her hand away from his with her lungs and her eyes and her whole body burning, and she thinks maybe this is what it feels like when the world ends and all the stars fall from the sky. 

She's crying, then, sobs that cascade out of her and shake her chest and Henry's arms are around her and they're both sinking slowly to the floor. His fingers are gentle as they tangle in her hair, and even like this, the irony of it isn't lost on her—he's the one dying, and yet he's holding her in his arms as she breaks. It's part of who Henry is, though; a guardian, a protector, with or without a suit of armor.

_Fuck_, she needs him here, she _can't do this—_

Henry takes a stuttering breath, and when Charlotte looks up his eyes are screwed shut, a crimson trickle coming from the corner of his mouth. "Char," he starts, all the steadiness from his tone slowly fading now, "I need you to...Piper, Jasper...my parents, Ray, and-and Schwoz..." he hesitates, and his eyelids flutter open and she wonders fleetingly when the colors became so dim. "Can you just tell them? Please?"

The words stick in her throat. His eyes are urgent, searching, but she can't, she _can't _accept that he's going to—_no. _"There's still time," she breathes again, and tries and tries and _fails_ to hide the break in her voice as she helps him lay down and cards her fingers through his hair. "You can tell them yourself."

Charlotte reaches for the spellbook closest to her, rifles through it like somehow, it'll hold the key. There's a piece of her that knows it's useless, but she's doing her very fucking best to shove that piece down as far as possible. She doesn't need that right now. She doesn't need Henry looking at her like it's hopeless, like he's dead already, she doesn't need to cry anymore, what she _needs _is a cure. "There has to be a way," she says, mutters like she's trying to convince herself more than anyone else. "There _has to."_

Henry's fingers brush against hers gently, lace themselves through the gaps. "It's okay," he breathes. "Char, it's gonna be okay."

"No, I can't _lose you. _Henry, you're my best friend, you're—you're _everything, _please, you _can't—" _He_ can't. _She _needs_ him. She can't do this without him; she needs his smile and his stupid jokes and his laugh that sounds like a clear summer day, she needs the way his eyes blaze when he's passionate about something and the kindness of his heart and she needs him _here, _with her, she can't—

The realization hits her at the same moment that his last breath leaves his body, and she thinks that this is the cruelest joke that fate could've played.

"_I love you, Henry."_

The words tumble from her lips to spill over the stone floor, and then she's breaking and breaking and the world around her is falling to pieces because he's _gone_ and she _loves him, she's always loved him she—_

_She loves him._

Holy _shit, _Charlotte loves Henry. And there's one thing that can break any curse, reverse any spell. There's one thing that breaks the laws of magic entirely and can even bring people back from the dead, one thing that can _save him._

_True love's kiss._

Her mind whirs. True love is rare, but more powerful than anything else. If this is it, then it could work. But only if Henry loves her back. Only if whatever they have between them is _real._

_Please, _she thinks, squeezing her eyes shut, wiping the tears away from her face. This is her last chance, her _only _chance, at bringing him back. If it doesn't work—

No. No time to dwell on that now; she shuts that possibility away in a mental box and tosses away the key. Charlotte _has _to believe this will work, or else the world will end all over again. She's _going _to get him back.

She takes a deep breath and leans over Henry, her fingers brushing against his cold, cold cheek, running through his soft, familiar hair. In that moment, she knows her feelings are true. She loves him. It's just a question of whether he feels the same way.

"Come back to me, Hen," she breathes softly, and then slowly, gently, desperately, presses her lips to his.

There's a pause that makes her feel as though the universe is holding its breath. But there's no gust of wind, no chorus of angels, no flash of light—for a moment, there's just _nothing_.

Her lungs twist together, her throat closing up as it gets harder to harder to breathe. _Please_—

And then, "Char?"

Her breath catches as his eyelids flutter open. His brown eyes meet hers, full of color once again, and she feels a laugh bubble up in her throat and throws her arms around him as he pushes himself up.

"You're alive," she says into his shoulder, her hand tucking itself in between them so she can find his heartbeat and feel it thrumming softly in his chest. She follows its steady rhythm, reminding herself that he's alive, that that's his heart beating underneath her fingertips, that he's _okay_.

"You did it," he laughs a little, that same sound like a clear summer day, and she grips him tighter and wonders if she'll ever get tired of hearing it. "How did you do it?"

There's a beat of hesitation, and then Charlotte pulls back a little, one arm still hooked over his shoulder and the other hand coming up to cup his cheek. It's warm, now, no trace of the chill left behind except the memory. She pauses, and then looks him in the eyes with an earnest gaze. "True love's kiss," she says.

He falters for a moment. His eyes search her expression, like he's waiting for her to say she's joking. "True love's—you—you love me?"

"Idiot," she replies, with a fondness in her chest that she knows she'll never get rid of. "Yes, I love you, Henry Hart."

She'll remember the look on his face for years to come: he smiles like the fucking sun, bright and warm and beautiful, his eyes huge and flickering with light. "I love you too, Charlotte Page-Bolton," he breathes, and there's a moment that seems to Charlotte like the world is on hold, like the third rule of sorcery has been broken and time has stopped, and they just take it in.

"And," Henry says then, and his smile turns sly at the edges. "If you'll let me, I'd like to kiss you while I'm conscious this time."

Charlotte lifts an eyebrow. "On one condition," she replies swiftly, and his expression turns curious.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

She hooks a finger in his collar. "Don't ever. Die on me again."

"Deal," he says, and then shoves his lips against hers, and Charlotte runs her fingers through his hair and thinks fleetingly that they should stay like this forever. This time, it feels like she's the one coming to life all over again; it's bold and bright and wonderful, and honestly? 

She can see why true love's kiss is so fucking magical.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you thought in the comments! you can find me on tumblr at @kiddangers


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